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In
March 2005, Bay
Harbour had invested $15 million to bring Kistler out of bankruptcy.
This was to keep the company alive long enough for NASA to select its
fully reusable launch vehicle, also called the Kistler,
to
re-supply the International Space Station. Six months later,
NASA’s
money was not forthcoming, and on 30th September Bay Harbour
radically reduced their funding without quite pulling the plug.

Frustrated
space entrepreneurs, sometimes called the “alt.space
community,”
claim this story repeats itself like a broken record. Startup
companies propose some dramatic new way to reduce costs and NASA
shuns it, favoring in-house development or familiar aerospace
contractors in spite of high costs. Without NASA as a guaranteed
market, alt.space entrepreneurs say they cannot raise capital from
the investment community.

On
the other hand, a friend who works for a major NASA contractor told
me their rockets are, indeed, expensive – but they have not
failed
in a long time. While he did not use these words, his argument
boiled down to, you get what you pay for.

This
was only the latest chapter in the Kistler soap opera. I remember
traveling from San Francisco to Seattle in the Fall of 1994 to cover
Kistler Aerospace’s announcement of their new Kistler
launch vehicle. At that time, the new company planned to orbit the
hundreds of networked mobile communications satellites Iridium and
Globalstar would need to renew their constellations, as well as
additional spacecraft for their competitors. When low Earth orbit
communications satellite industry collapsed, Kistler managed to get
contracts from NASA to test fly new technologies for the Clinton-era
Space Launch Initiative. That morphed into a contract to supply
flight test data to NASA, placing the firm in the front-running for
the Space Station re-supply contract. Competitor SpaceX contested
that contract, claiming correctly that it was awarded without
competition (although SpaceX has its own share of thinly disguised
development subsidies from the Air Force and other agencies). When
it became clear that the General Accounting Office agreed with
SpaceX, NASA withdrew the contract. With vehicle development
approximately three-quarters complete, and given the continuing slow
pace of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
solicitation, Kistler appears to have run out of lives.

The
Kistler idea was and remains remarkable for its unique combination of
conservative technology and radical implementation. The company
designed, and largely developed, a fully reusable two-stage launch
vehicle using left over engines from the giant N-1 rocket the Soviet
Union developed attempting to beat Apollo to the moon.

After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, Aerojet bought the relatively
simple N-1 engines from the Russians. At Aerojet’s plant,
approximately 150 kilometers inland from San Francisco, the engines
were modified to be fully reusable, refurbished, and tested. N-1
engines do not push the state-of-the-art, burning Kerosene, which is
easy to obtain, handle, and store.

The
two-stage Kistler vehicles’ structure featured large margins
and
line-replaceable parts, and would use airbags to land. In theory,
this would enable one-hundred re-flights with limited refurbishment
between missions. The launch system was designed to “deliver
up to
3,200 kilograms of pressurized cargo to the International Space
Station”, according to Kistler. Addressing a major logistical
issue with the post-Shuttle station, it could also “return up
to
900 kilograms of recoverable down-mass.” In addition,
“Kistler
is capable of providing up to forty kilometers of re-boost and
attitude control for the” orbital outpost.

All
this might be hard to believe were it not for the sterling
credentials of many of the managers and engineers who signed on to
the company. Certainly the investment community was convinced,
pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars before the low Earth orbit
comsat market collapsed and Kistler entered bankruptcy.

As
a second-generation reusable rocket, Kistler’s apparent
failure is
a significant loss to the space industry. NASA was correct to offer
money in return for flight data, and SpaceX was wrong to oppose the
deal. SpaceX’s Falcon is a relatively conventional expendable
rocket using innovative construction and operations techniques to
reduce costs. The Falcon, at least as it is publicly described, is
not capable of producing comparable flight data.

The
SpaceX Falcon is designed to compete with Orbital Science’s
Pegasus, with larger follow-on vehicles taking on the Boeing and
Lockheed-Martin Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles. SpaceX is
financed by its owner’s personal fortune. Thus, the Falcon is
one
of the most financially credible alt.space proposals – but so
far
the only thing the company has to show is promises. Worse, are the
ever more grandiose nature of the promises – the latest being
for a
Saturn-class vehicle capable of lifting one-hundred tons.
SpaceX’s
hubris, without having achieved a single flight in what was supposed
to be a relatively straight-forward development project, makes me
wonder if my friend is right and the business of flying to orbit
really is as difficult and expensive as NASA makes out.

The
Falcon may have flown by the time this newspaper is circulated, and
if successful, the difficulties and hubris will be forgotten. However,
until SpaceX or Kistler, or somebody else, has a number of
successful flights under its belt -- and unless those flights are
substantially cheaper and / or more reliable than those
NASA’s
traditional contractors can provide -- why should NASA Administrator
Dr. Michael Griffin listen to the alt.space community’s
increasingly bitter complaints about NASA’s refusal to buy
their
products in advance?

After all, we have been through this before. Orbital
Science’s air
launched Pegasus was supposed to be a cheaper alternative –
until
an up-rated version repeatedly failed. When NASA tired of losing
expensive spacecraft and insisted Orbital achieve reliability levels
comparable to the space agency’s traditional suppliers,
Orbital’s
cost advantage evaporated.

It
is past time for the alt.space community to put up or shut up. There
are clear markets, now, for their services. These range from the
types of experimental satellite launches SpaceX has gone after and
won, to the promise of Space Station and lunar logistics missions, to
space tourism. More importantly, if alt.space can convincingly
promise the investment community lower costs and risk, and develop a
successful launch vehicle, the traditional markets for commercial,
civil, and military applications and scientific satellites should
quickly fall into their laps.

The
space industry is a mature industry with well-understood and stable
markets, albeit distressingly small ones. With strong engineering
and good marketing plans, the alt.space community should be able to
raise their own funds. It is sad to see Kistler fall away, but Dr.
Griffin is right to insist that alt.space show him real hardware
before he buys.

If
alt.space companies want to displace the big boys, they need to grow
up and fly.

Donald
F. Robertson is a freelance space industry journalist based in San
Francisco. He is a small shareholder in Aerojet and Orbital
Sciences.